Page 11 of War Games (Jacky Leon #11)

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CHAPTER TEN

HEATH

H eath sat at dinner with his daughter, letting her pick whatever she wanted off the menu for both of them. They had gone to the movies, just like Jacky had recommended, and saw a double feature, then they drove around for a little while, trying to find somewhere to eat. They ended up at one of the nicer restaurants in Tyler. It wasn’t the same caliber they could find in Dallas, but neither of them had wanted to drive all the way there.

“I think my dad will really like this one,” she said, pointing at the menu for the server. He had no idea which item she was pointing at and didn’t care. He would eat anything she picked out for him. It would make the meal special even if he didn’t like the taste.

“Sir?” The server looked at him, batting her eyelashes in that flirtatious way that told him this young woman didn’t know who he was, only seeing the attractive man with his daughter, who should seem too old to be his daughter now. With no wife or girlfriend in sight, she saw someone she could flirt with, maybe for a better tip or maybe for an exchange of numbers.

Perhaps we should have made the drive to Dallas. Any of the restaurants I used to frequent there would have made sure to tell their new staff not to try flirting with me when I wanted to enjoy my meal.

“My daughter knows what I like and don’t,” he said simply, shrugging a shoulder to make sure the server knew he truly didn’t care what his daughter was picking or how much it cost. “I’m sure whatever it is will be wonderful.”

“We also want this for dessert,” Carey continued, pointing at something else on the next page of the menu. “And this. We’ll split them both.”

“Oh, okay,” the server, whose name tag said Natalie, looked back down at what Carey was making him pay for and wrote both of those down. “Sir? Is there anything you would like to add?”

“My daughter’s choices will be fine,” Heath said softly, not missing how Carey rolled her eyes at Natalie, who he was certain introduced herself while he had been thinking of other things and missed it. “Before you go, I would like to ask about the status of our drinks. Another server took that order when we sat down.” He knew Carey wouldn’t ask to avoid any conflict with a random server, but he was parched.

“Of course, I’ll check on them.” Her beaming smile wasn’t what he had been going for. He had no problem with being nice to the staff. He always wanted to be.

I don’t want them to think I’m going to engage with the flirting…

“Let me take these menus, and I’ll be right back,” Natalie said, practically bouncing as she grabbed the menus and walked away.

“You okay, Dad?” Carey asked.

“I’m going to need you to do all the talking today,” he said, not giving her a full answer.

“Yeah, I was trying. You made eye contact with her and now look at what we have to deal with.” Carey rolled her eyes again. “You probably weren’t even thinking when you asked about the drinks.”

“I wasn’t,” he admitted. “I’m thirsty, and I know you don’t enjoy the conflict.”

“Where did you get that idea?” Carey said, the scent of her confusion filling the air around him. “I broke a girl’s nose once.”

“Would you have asked about our drinks before the food arrived?” he countered.

“No…” Carey looked away.

“Exactly.” He smiled, knowing his daughter well enough to know the difference between punching a girl for insulting the family and asking about drinks. It was a small thing to ask about drinks, but it was a thing. With the way Natalie was already behaving and his sense of smell, he knew Carey was already annoyed. He had to mention twice that he was okay with whatever Carey was picking out. He was okay with someone getting that clarification once. Needing to deal with it twice was a message. Carey was sixteen now. She was old enough to make these choices and have some control. He was giving her the space to do that. Every time someone wanted to defer to him, they counteracted the lessons he was trying to let her learn.

When their drinks arrived, Natalie was carrying them. She also brought their appetizer shortly after that. Each time she showed up at the table, she was doing those things—tucking her hair back, smiling at him, ignoring his daughter.

“How are you enjoying your food?” she asked him, and he looked at Carey.

“My daughter chose well,” he finally said, as Carey remained silent, glaring at the young woman.

“When you’re done with the appetizer, please wave me down and I’ll clear it for you,” she said, smiling at him still, not glancing in Carey’s direction at all.

When she was gone, he realized he was in the middle of a war zone. Carey went from annoyed to pissed.

I guess now is the time for Carey to learn how to step up in this situation. Great. Just how I wanted to spend my Sunday night.

The rest of their food arrived, and once again, Natalie continued to pay more attention to him than Carey. She didn’t speak up once again, and he wondered if she ever would, but he wouldn’t call her out at the table where others could hear. They could talk in the truck about it. He kept his answers short, always giving Carey the credit for her choices about their meal.

“Is there anything else I can get you?” she asked him as dessert was placed in front of them. Standing toward his side of the table, she turned in a way that implied she forgot Carey was even at the table with him.

“No, we’re fine,” Carey said before he could open his mouth. “And when you bring the check, the person paying is over here. You can go get it now. We won’t be having anything else after dessert.”

It was a struggle, but Heath controlled his expression and kept his mouth shut, wanting to see how this played out.

“I’ll get that for you,” Natalie said quickly, walking away fast.

Carey sat silently and started eating her dessert, and Heath tried to eat his own. It was sweet enough to make him slightly ill after only a few bites, and he saw Carey push her own away, only half eaten. The rest of the food had been good, better than he expected at the price point. The desserts were too much, not only for him but also for his human daughter, which was hard to do.

When the check came, Carey paid in cash, shoving in bills and handing it back before Natalie could walk away.

“Keep the change,” Carey said, beginning to stand up as Natalie nodded and walked away.

“When did you get that much cash?” he asked, unable to keep the question to himself until they could make it outside.

“I’ve been tutoring online to make some extra money and kill time while everyone was so busy this summer,” she explained, shrugging. Grabbing her purse, a small thing she started carrying when she started driving, she gestured for him to follow. “Let’s go.”

“Okay.” He got up and smiled as he walked out with his daughter. They drew some looks, just as they always did.

“She got a ten-dollar tip,” Carey said softly as they stepped outside and headed for his truck. “Which was only ten percent of the meal. Think that was a good enough message not to flirt with a girl’s dad if the girl is paying for dinner?”

“I think how you handled it at the end was message enough,” he said, pulling out his keys to unlock it. He opened the door for her and closed it once she was inside. He quickly checked the truck for any bugs of the electronic variety and once he felt satisfied, he got into the driver’s seat and looked at his daughter.

“I was hoping you would step in earlier.”

“Were you?” She looked horrified. “I was thinking that if she wanted to behave that way, I didn’t need to cause a fuss. I just wouldn’t tip her and would make sure she understood that when dinner was over.”

“So, I was trying to teach you a lesson about taking control of a situation, and you wanted to teach her a lesson.” With a chuckle, Heath turned on his truck. “I’m not sure why I thought I needed to teach you anything now.”

“Maybe it’s because we haven’t hung out recently. I go out to dinner with Landon and Dirk enough, though. I see them do it all the time. Better than causing a scene in the restaurant by potentially getting someone in trouble, Dirk says. Landon will grumble a bit, but that’s Landon.”

“Landon has grumbled about too much attention at places since he was a child,” Heath said, sighing. “It’s not his fault. The attention used to be for a different reason than just him being an attractive young man. He also hates being entirely ignored the way Natalie just did to you. Also, for a different reason.” Heath was a white man, and his son wasn’t. Raising Landon in the latter half of the 1800s hadn’t been easy on either of them. It hadn’t been an easy time to be a mixed family.

“Yeah, it’s understandable why he is the way he is.” Carey leaned back. “Dessert was bad. That was disappointing. It was just… all sugar.”

“I thought the same thing,” he said. “The rest was good. We’ll have to find out if they are willing to do large orders or catering for the pack. We can forgo dessert for those types of things.”

“I’ll look into it if you want to pay me for it.”

“I’m sure we can come to an agreement. What’s your tutoring rate?” he asked, thrilled that his daughter was going to bargain her time for an income. Heath was as much a businessman as he was a werewolf and a father.

“I charge twenty dollars an hour and tutor ten hours a week, maximum. I charge twenty because high school students and their working families may not have the money for more,” she answered, smiling. “Working for the pack, I will charge fifty because the pack has more expendable income and is more important work. On top of that, my tutoring is a set schedule, but the pack notably needs more flexibility. I should be paid to account for that difference because it might interfere with other areas of my life.”

He was so impressed by her immediate argument about how much she should be paid and why, he knew he was going to agree with it. He was truthfully proud of her, even if her logic wasn’t perfect. She had been so completely confident in her offer that he knew a few people who would have just given her what she wanted because it was ballsy and charming to see from a young woman her age.

“Done,” he said. “We’ll shake on it once we get home. I’ll even have a contract written up to give you tomorrow.”

“Pleasure doing business with you,” she said, grinning as he pulled out of the parking spot and started the drive home.

Once home, he and Carey shook hands in front of Jacky, who was utterly confused by the action. He could only imagine the scene that played out for her. Father and daughter laughing as they found her, got into position and shook without saying a word to her about it.

“What is happening?” she asked, looking between them.

“A business deal that you have now been a witness to. I will pay Carey fifty dollars an hour for any work she does for the pack. Specifically, finding out what restaurants will cater large meals when I need to feed all of them.”

“That’s just to start,” Carey said, grinning as she left.

“She’s scamming you,” Jacky said softly once Carey was in her room.

“Oh, I know,” Heath said, chuckling. “It’s only going to be a few hours a week, though, and she’s working for the money. She wants to be self-sufficient. Why not encourage that sort of energy?”

“Fair enough.” Jacky shrugged, and he could see it was put to rest for her.

“I need Teagan to write up a contract,” he said, kissing her cheek as he pulled out his phone to send that text. Teagan was humored and promised to have a draft by the end of the next business day.

Later, when he and Jacky were in bed, his phone started going off.

“It’s nearly midnight,” Jacky said with a groan, curled under the blankets right where he wanted her, as he reached for his phone. He wasn’t moving fast until he saw the name.

“It’s Dirk,” he said, answering it. “What’s going on?”

“You ordered me to?—”

“I’ll be right there,” Heath said with a snarl in his words. He was jumping out of bed before he even hung up, looking for a pair of pants. He grabbed a pair of sweats and looked at Jacky as he pulled them.

She was out of bed, too, pulling on a shirt and shorts.

“I’ll go. You stay here. Expect Dirk to come over.”

“I can help,” she said, and he met those gold eyes, ready for a fight if a fight needed to happen.

“I can handle my werewolves,” he said, knowing she would face anything if she felt the need.

She nodded, grabbing a jacket.

“Then I’ll be here for him. I’ll make him something to eat.”

“Thank you.”

He finished getting dressed and ran out faster than her. He was grateful for the touch of magic on his truck to keep the late-night officers from noticing how much he was speeding this evening. He nearly bent his steering wheel as he jerked it to turn into his son’s driveway. By the time he was out of the truck and opening their front door, he was furious, and there was nothing else distracting him from it.

I raised Landon better than this. I know I did.

He found Dirk standing near the front door, a couple of packed bags at his feet. He was holding a little too still for Heath. Landon was on the floor, his head in his arms, his knees pulled up.

The image of them made Heath jerk to a stop.

“He didn’t mean to,” Dirk whispered. “He really didn’t. Your order made me call, but he didn’t mean to do it.”

“That’s for me to deal with,” Heath said, staring at his son. “You head over to see Jacky. Sleep on the couch, so you get some rest for your drive tomorrow.”

Landon made a noise, but it was soft and short.

“Don’t be too angry… We’ll get through this. He just needs to talk to you.” Dirk didn’t move, and Heath finally turned to him.

“Go,” he ordered gently, but with enough power that Dirk didn’t have an option. He grabbed his keys and his bags, walking out without another word. Once Heath knew he was gone, he looked back at Landon.

Landon wasn’t looking at him. Once, when Landon was younger, Heath had found him in the exact same position. He’d punched another boy for the first time. He admitted to Heath that day that he had wanted to kill the other young werewolf, and that had made him feel guilty, broken, and immoral. Heath had known what the pack had forced his son to become and desperately wished that he could have stopped it.

Most importantly, it had made Landon afraid.

His middle child never handled his fear well.

Heath remembered a lesson from his first wife and held it to his heart as he did with all his children. He didn’t always live up to the lesson, but there was something about Landon that always had him thinking about it. She had said it about Richard when he was a wild little boy, and Heath had gotten angry with something breaking, but it was always Landon who made him think about it.

Love him first. Before anything, he’s just your son. We can fix what he broke and teach him better, but you better always love our son.

He walked across the room, smelling his son’s anger, his despair, and underneath both, his wild, uncontrolled fear. Only the fear that he couldn’t address brought Landon down like this.

He sat beside his son in the hall, not reaching to touch him yet.

“I took Carey out today. Jacky roped me into it, and I needed it. I haven’t spent enough time with either of you just as your father recently. We saw a couple of movies, then went to dinner. At dinner, the waitress was hitting on me, even though Carey was the one ordering everything. She ignored Carey most of the meal, and I kept waiting for Carey to step in and say something.” Heath was grateful he had that experience today for a new reason. It was a good way to address the fear without pointing it out yet.

“She didn’t. She waited until it was time to pay, which she did and did a small but wonderful little power move to prove the point that no one should be ignored at the table. She said she learned it when eating out with you and Dirk. Dirk would do it, I assume, because she said he would tell her there was no reason to cause a scene and ruin the entire meal. I should have known better than to expect her to cause a scene, but the waitress was annoying me with her light antics.”

“You didn’t have Jacky,” Landon mumbled, his head still down, so it was muffled by his arms.

“I didn’t, so I should have expected a waitress to get bold enough to try flirting with me. There’s one in every restaurant, and sometimes, I get put in their sections. It happens.”

“Why are you not talking about what I did?”

“Because I know why you did it, and I thought it would be good to tell you a story about how Carey learned something from Dirk, who has his own strengths, education, and survival skills,” Heath explained, finally reaching out to put an arm around Landon.

“I know he does,” Landon said, his body beginning to shake. The words came out like they had from the young boy over a century ago, fighting back the tears brought on by being overwhelmed by fear. “I know.”

“Do you trust me?” Heath asked.

Landon nodded.

“Do you trust Jacky?”

Another nod.

“Do you trust Dirk?”

Landon’s nod became vigorous.

“Then we’re going to go to training in the morning, and you’re going to work hard to pay for the day you missed. Jacky and Dirk are going to go do what they promised their family they would do. By the end of the week, you’ll see it will all be okay.”

“He’s…”

“Important to you. I know,” Heath said, pulling his son in tighter.

“He’s the first and only,” Landon continued, leaning even closer, his head on Heath’s chest. “He’s the one person I’ve ever loved. I can’t lose him. I can’t let those witches get him. I can’t?—”

“And we’ll help you protect him, but you can’t do that by caging him. You can protect him better by working with him as his partner, and you know that, Landon,” Heath said, rubbing his son’s back. “You know that. Now, take a deep breath.”

Landon tried, and Heath continued to comfort him. The fear was wildly irrational in its power for someone like Heath. He’d faced this time and time again. He’d made the mistake of not being the best partner with Landon’s mother. He was adamant about not making the same mistake with Jacky, but then the fear didn’t paralyze him like it did Landon.

Landon had no experience with it, though. None at all. Heath felt idiotic for not really thinking about it sooner. Landon, who was ostracized and attacked for what he looked like, who he was attracted to, and what type of werewolf he had become, never had a real loving partner before. With Dirk’s transition to a werewolf, then what happened in Germany, Heath should have known that Landon would only grow more fearful of losing Dirk to something violent and tragic.

“I’ve got you,” Heath whispered to his son, holding him as he cried until he passed out from exhaustion, just like he had when Landon was so much younger.